What a Horrible Night to Have Incompatible ROM Hacks (Castlevania troubles)

[Psychlonic]

Hello everyone, I've recently decided to try patching up the three NES Castlevania games so I can actually enjoy playing them, they've never been my thing and I've never had the patience to make it past the first couple levels in any of them. My main gripe was always the controls (I refuse to play with the default controls/knockback system) so I'm happy to see hackers have fixed this issue with their improved controls ROM hacks.

However, I've ran into a bit of a roadblock trying to combine them with patches that they are supposedly compatible with but in each case they seem to break the other hack.

With the original Castlevania, I'm trying to play with both "Improved Controls" and "Ultimate Castlevania". I'm using the correct GoodNES ROM that Ultimate Castlevania calls for and according to the readme, the base Improved Controls patch is supposed to be compatible. However, applying it breaks the stairs. If I try to apply the patches in the opposite order, the ROM breaks completely. :/ I've tried to patch using the "hack" compatible patches and that similarly just breaks the ROM.

In Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, similarly I'd like to have both "Improved Controls" and the excellent Re-translation hack by Bisqwit. Again, I'm using the correct GoodNES ROM it wants and, as the Improved Controls readme states I'm applying the Re-translation first and then the compatible IC patch. What happens is that any text pop ups including the status screen are completely garbled. Similar to the problem with the first game, I've tried applying various patches in different orders and nothing works.

In each case, the patches work fine by themselves - I'm using Lunar IPS to apply - but when I try to apply both, nothing wants to play nice.
Any help here? Has anyone else found success? This is killing me, it seems like for the first time I might be able to actually enjoy both of these games.

EDIT - I wasn't entirely sure if this belonged in here or General Discussion, if I've ran afoul my apologies to the moderation team.

EDIT 2 - I don't know if you'll ever read this NaOH, but thank you for your updates on the patches that allow these to be compatible! Just got back to this to look for updates and I see they happened not too long after this was posted. That dedication to improving the experience is appreciated and I look forward to finally getting to enjoy these games!

[Masked Dedede]

Hello everyone, I've recently decided to try patching up the three NES Castlevania games so I can actually enjoy playing them, they've never been my thing and I've never had the patience to make it past the first couple levels in any of them. My main gripe was always the controls (I refuse to play with the default controls/knockback system) so I'm happy to see hackers have fixed this issue with their improved controls ROM hacks.

However, I've ran into a bit of a roadblock trying to combine them with patches that they are supposedly compatible with but in each case they seem to break the other hack.

With the original Castlevania, I'm trying to play with both "Improved Controls" and "Ultimate Castlevania". I'm using the correct GoodNES ROM that Ultimate Castlevania calls for and according to the readme, the base Improved Controls patch is supposed to be compatible. However, applying it breaks the stairs. If I try to apply the patches in the opposite order, the ROM breaks completely. :/ I've tried to patch using the "hack" compatible patches and that similarly just breaks the ROM.

In Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, similarly I'd like to have both "Improved Controls" and the excellent Re-translation hack by Bisqwit. Again, I'm using the correct GoodNES ROM it wants and, as the Improved Controls readme states I'm applying the Re-translation first and then the compatible IC patch. What happens is that any text pop ups including the status screen are completely garbled. Similar to the problem with the first game, I've tried applying various patches in different orders and nothing works.

In each case, the patches work fine by themselves - I'm using Lunar IPS to apply - but when I try to apply both, nothing wants to play nice.
Any help here? Has anyone else found success? This is killing me, it seems like for the first time I might be able to actually enjoy both of these games.

EDIT - I wasn't entirely sure if this belonged in here or General Discussion, if I've ran afoul my apologies to the moderation team.

I've only encountered the issue with the Simon's Quest one, the Improved Controls hack hasn't been updated to be compatible with current versions of the hack that have the map option enabled

[Psychlonic]

Yeah... I was afraid that could possibly be the case checking out the dates. Still no luck on the original Castlevania, though I did find to my delight that Improved Controls works wonderfully with the Mesen graphics packs out there. The smoother controls really help pull the look off better.